Field of Science

Plant developmental morphology and Darwin

Two of the Phactors favorite people happen to be botanists who study plant development and evolution and who happen to be a couple. Having known them since they were in graduate school, it's been great to watch the careers of such talented people and to associate with them, that is when they let me hang around. One of the interesting things about them is that they have an interest in the history of science, and soon to be published in The Plant Cell is an very nice historical article on the history of plant developmental morphology (not sure if the article is free or not since our institution does subscribe). Plants are very different from the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" type of embryology, and some of the early observations were pre-Darwin and quite impressive. Working on a manuscript with images rather like some of these illustrations right now. Talked about this article with the authors last year at meetings, but HT to the AOB Blog for tipping me to the online pre-pub version.

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